Organic batteries are electrochemical cells which use an organic charge storage material as active electrode material for storing electrical charge. These secondary batteries are notable for their exceptional properties, such as fast chargeability, long lifetime, low weight, high flexibility and ease of processibility. Active electrode materials which have been described for charge storage in the prior art are various polymeric structures, for example polymeric compounds having organic nitroxide radicals as active units (for example in WO 2012133202 A1, WO 2012133204 A1, WO 2012120929 A1, WO 2012153866 A1, WO 2012153865 A1, JP 2012-221574 A, JP 2012-221575 A, JP 2012-219109 A, JP 2012-079639 A, WO 2012029556 A1, WO 2012153865 A1, JP 2011-252106 A, JP 2011-074317 A, JP 2011-165433 A, WO 2011034117 A1, WO 2010140512 A1, WO 2010104002 A1, JP 2010-238403 A, JP 2010-163551 A, JP 2010-114042 A, WO 2010002002 A1, WO 2009038125 A1, JP 2009-298873 A, WO 2004077593 A1, WO 2009145225 A1, JP 2009-238612 A, JP 2009-230951 A, JP 2009-205918 A, JP 2008-234909 A, JP 2008-218326 A, WO 2008099557 A1, WO 2007141913 A1, US 20020041995 A1, EP 1128453 A2; A. Vlad, J. Rolland, G. Hauffman, B. Ernould, J.-F. Gohy, ChemSusChem 2015, 8, 1692-1696) or polymeric compounds having organic phenoxyl radicals or galvinoxyl radicals as active units (for example US 2002/0041995 A1, JP 2002-117852 A).
Other known active units for charge storage are polymeric compounds having quinones (for example JP 2009-217992 A, WO 2013/099567 A1, WO 2011/068217 A1), having diones (for example JP 2010-212152 A), and having dicyanodiimines (for example JP 2012-190545 A, JP 2010-55923 A).
Polymers including dialkoxybenzene have also been described in the prior art for a multitude of different applications. These include the use thereof as epoxy resins for seething of semiconductor modules (for example described in JP 2013098217 A, JP 2012224758 A, JP 2011231153 A, JP 2011138037 A, JP 2010282154 A, JP 2010266556 A, JP 2010077303 A, JP 2008296436 A or WO 2004098745 A1). In addition, dialkoxybenzene-containing non-polymeric compounds have been used as “redox shuttle” additives for Li ion batteries, in order to prevent overcharging of the Li ion battery (WO 2011/149970 A2). In addition, the use of particular polymers based on dialkoxybenzenes as electrical charge storage means has also been described (P. Nesvadba, L. B. Folger, P. Maire, P. Novak, Synth. Met. 2011, 161, 259-262, abbreviated hereinafter to “Nesvadba et al.”; W. Weng, Z. C. Zhang, A. Abouimrane, P. C. Redfern, L. A. Curtiss, K. Amine, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2012, 22, 4485-4492, abbreviated hereinafter to “Weng et al.”). However, these polymers described by Nesvadba et al. and Weng et al. have several disadvantages. Although these have a redox potential above that of the frequently used nitroxide radicals and hence enable higher cell voltages when the dialkoxybenzene-containing polymers are used as cathode material, batteries which have been produced with these polymers described in the literature exhibit a drop in capacity on undergoing several charge and discharge cycles. It is thus desirable, and therefore is a problem addressed by the invention, to provide polymers with which an even higher cell voltage and high constant storage capacities can be achieved over several charge/discharge cycles. In addition, synthesis complexity is a further criterion for the usability of organic materials as active electrode materials. A further problem addressed by the present invention was therefore that of providing polymers that can be synthesized in a very simple manner.